From Pain Came Great Beauty

Dance has been a central part of my life for as long as I can remember but it has become my life line for much of my adult life. I started dancing when I was 2 years old when my mom signed me up for dance classes. Little did I know that she was giving me the greatest coping method I could ever ask for. My early years in dance were spent learning dance routines to be performed for end of the year recitals and then later for competition. It was not until I started studying dance at college that I realized the power of the art form I had been studying my entire life. See, when I studied ballet, tap and jazz I was learning technique and steps but I had no idea that I could use the power of movement to express myself and my emotions. In my freshman year of college I began to study modern dance and a new world opened up for me. I had studied modern a few years prior for a short time but was very unimpressed with it because it seemed to have no point, no direction at all. Modern was interpretive and abstract and, at the time, I had no idea what that really meant. I tell everyone my roots are in tap and jazz but my soul is in modern. It was through modern dance that I learned that all dance was expressive, you just had to look for it and FEEL it.

I am sharing this because each of us have our own coping methods for how we handle life and all that it brings our way. For me, dance became a way I could express my emotions, my deepest feelings through an art form that could not only be beautiful but could also connect with those who were watching. For our own mental health, it is important to have an outlet to release the things that we are feeling, struggling with, or are trying to understand so we can deal with it and then be able to grow and move forward. Dance has been my outlet to release everything I tend to hold inside and not share with the world. The pieces I create are very personal to me and expose my inter fears, joys, loss, heartbreak, betrayal, love, joy, … and the list could go on. My hope in creating each work is to work through that which I have lived and hopefully touch someone in the audience and move them in a positive way. My talent, my gift is from G-D and I do not feel I have the right to not share it with the world. Other people write, paint, sculpt, compose, act, direct, or find other ways to express themselves but dance is my expression. So why do I chose to expose my emotions to the world?

Each work I create is because I know that someone watching has experienced the same thing or something similar. I know they will connect with the work, be moved by it, and leave a lasting impact that may be what they need to begin to work through their emotions and cope with what they have buried inside them. So how do I start the process? Honestly, it just depends. Sometimes I hear a piece of music and it speaks to a part of me and I can feel the emotion which is the inspiration to create. Other times I may be dealing with something that I do not want to share with anyone and I am trying to work through it on my own and that puts me in search of music that connects. There have also been times I have created pieces to honor the memory of someone dear I have lost and I want to capture their essence to leave my tribute to show what they meant to me and to the ones they loved. Sometimes it is just a general concept/theme that is important. The very first piece I created for a local university ensemble I worked and performed with was such a piece. The work was entitled “Struggle” and was set to Prince’s Purple Rain about how through the “storms” we experience in our lives we struggle through them but we survive and go on. For me, the dancers are the paint, the notes, the words on the page that tell the story and, in many cases, the specific dancers also inspire the movement that I use to create the story. The same work performed with a different cast has a different feel and texture each time because the dancers bring their own emotion and experiences to the work.

The deeply personal pieces are easier to create when I set them on other dancers than when I set them on myself to perform. For me to personally perform such a personal piece makes me feel naked and exposed to the world because it is the most honest and vulnerable I can ever be. It is not someone else interpreting what I have created it is me, the one who lived and felt it, that is performing. Those works are by far the HARDEST works I have ever had to perform. Each work I create is full of symbolism, emotion, messages in the movement, the relationship of the dancers in the space to each other and with the audience, the lighting, the music, and the costumes are ALL part of the art I am creating. Remove one of those elements and it has a different feeling. Also, the name of the works have meaning in them. Sometimes I have the name before anything else and sometimes I am struggling at the very end for the perfect title for the work. There are times when the title is so personal that I translate it into another language to hide the exact meaning because the translation in itself is beautiful but unless you looked up the meaning in English, it would be allusive to the audience. You may be thinking why put all of this effort into it? As I said before, dance is my coping method, my therapy to work through life and, in some cases, create great beauty through some of my deepest pain.

Life can be very challenging for some of us. Some are blessed to have relatively easy lives with very little tragedy. For others, life has been very overwhelming and sometimes it feels like there is no escape for all the hateful evils of this world. Regardless, each person deals with life differently. Some have a harder time than others and some seem like they are made of steel because they have survived crushing events that should have broken them but they are still standing. Each of us must have a way they can cope with all that life throws our way. Sometimes these methods are not enough and we need additional help form trained professionals to help us through those trying times. No matter what, it is important to have some type of method to express yourself so you can get it out and not keep it bottled up inside until it begins to eat away at you. I have chosen to take my method to touch others and share it with the world. You may not want to share and that is OK. Each of us have to do what is best for us and what is right. I will be heading back into the studio to start creating again and this time, like every other time, is very different. I am unsure what I will create other than I have one work with music I have selected and the music is the inspiration. What will be your inspiration? Will great pain inspire you to create something truely beautiful or will great love be your inspiration. For me, the fact I can create something beautiful from some of the depths of unbearable pain is amazing and proves that there is light in the darkest of places. You just have to look hard enough to find the light.